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DIWA (Digital Imaging Websites Association), a world-wide organization of collaborating websites, has the pleasure of announcing the winners of the annual DIWA Platinum Awards for 2006. DIWA members from Europe and North America continuously test and review digital imaging products. For digital cameras, more than 200 details must be checked, tested and evaluated. Each review is then carefully monitored and compared by DIWA to ensure error free, reliable and comprehensive test results. Each year, all gold winners from the previous year are re-evaluated by the 10 member websites of the DIWA organization. The very best from each of the three digital camera categories are honored with a DIWA Platinum Award. For 2006, the DIWA group of experts has selected the following digital cameras from Fujifilm, Panasonic and Nikon to win the prestigious DIWA Platinum Award:

Interactive mobile cell phone website launched : Imaging Network launches the multilingual, informative and interactive mobile phone Web site; LetsGoMobile. After several successful years with the multilingual digital photography Web site LetsGoDigital, Imaging Network has decided to broaden its expertise by launching LetsGoMobile. The new mobile imaging Web site is available in four different languages; English, German, Dutch and Turkish. Targeting the mobile consumer, LetsGoMobile aims to be a user friendly and easy to browse web magazine with numerous customized and interactive possibilities enabling visitors to globally share consumer product experiences.

While preparing the Photokina tour some of us talked about Micron and its line of sensor solutions. So after informing about Micron's activities we decided to set up a brief Q & A session with Suresh Venkatraman, director of Marketing Micron Imaging and Paul Clark, Regional Communications Manager Europe. And already after some minutes it was obvious that this company was not just playing around in the digital imaging market. It has actually come up wit great innovative ideas and a lot of Micron products we already got acquainted to; like the image sensors for camphones. What about high-speed recording? Not with 30 frames a sec., but what the heck… 5000 frames a second? The Micron guys showed us an amazing demonstration, impressive!

During out Photokina visit we had a meeting with Mister Suguru Takamatsu, Coordinator Marke-ting Team Overseas Sales & Marketing Group and Ichiro Kitao, Product Planning Manager, from Panasonic and discussed the status of the Panasonic L1 digital SLR camera and Panasonic's plans as to future DSLR cameras. Panasonic showcased their complete new series of digital compact and SLR cameras. The booth is very big and it shows Panasonic is serious about their position in the camera market. Visitors were able to touch and try the new Panasonic L1, Lumix FZ50 and LX2 cameras, and the ultra-compact FX3, FX03 and FX50 models. Suguru and Ichiro spend some time to have quick Q & A session with us.

It has been a while since we last spoke with Kazuto Yamaki, Chief Operating Officer, from Sigma Japan. I think it was since last PMA 2006 where we talked about the new FourThirds system lenses and Sigma's future in the digital SLR market. At this Photokina Sigma unveiled some very interesting products, and this time those are not only lenses. We took some time to set up a Q&A session at the booth from Sigma, and asked Kazuto Yamaki about Sigma's new digital SLR camera; the Sigma SD14 and their interesting DP1 high-end digital compact camera. Both cameras are of high interested among our readers. Unfortunately we have to wait for some time to get our hands on a full production model of the DP1 camera.

When we attended the Photokina 2006 event to work on our show report we had a short meeting with Eero Salmelin, Director Camera Unit Nokia. During our Q&A session we talked about the new Nokia N95 camera phone. In the words of Eero Salmelin, the new Nokia N95 Nokia N95 is more like an all-in-one multimedia computer with a great 2-way slide concept, integrated GPS functionality, a 5 Megapixel camera and support for high-speed networks. Nokia had a great position between the digital camera manufacturers and showed the public that they are ready to claim their share of the digital compact camera market. The Nokia N95 has a great design, feels solid and incorporates a long list of imaging and connectivity solutions.

While we were visiting the SanDisk booth in Hall 6 of the Photokina event and were informed by Tanya Chuang, SanDisk’s senior retail product marketing manager, about the latest Extreme III 12 and 16GB CompactFlash and the new Ultra II SDHC flash memory cards we were enjoying the live performance of some street dancers. With the help of a DJ the dancers started to show their moves and the audience were caught by the act.

Personally I found the huge booth of Fujifilm was a big success as to explaining the visitor the advantages of a Fujifilm digital camera and why you just need to have one. Fujifilm has several divisions targeting a diverse range of market segments; medical imaging, professional graphic arts, professional and amateur consumer photography, and more. Each of those segments uses innovative techniques to bring high quality solutions to their clients. At the Fujifilm booth there was a demonstration of what can be a result of bringing those innovations from various segments together…

The Photokina Messe 2010 will be the event where manufacturers will be able to share its latest status within the market of imaging. Are they moving on, will they merge, or did they survived the worldwide financial crisis and already aim to expand their market share with new and innovative electronic devices and professional services? The market is competitive and will remain so in the following years. But it has become clear that manufacturers need to adept to the change of the consumer, or loose contact with the consumer market at all. Consumers connect via modern communication channels are better informed than before. Social media is for many consumers part of their daily lives where as companies still need to find out how and when to communicate at all. The Photokina 2010 show will give the companies a change to present themselves in full glory, stay tuned for our live Photokina report!